Part 13 (1/2)

His meaning was quite plain, and might have tempted many another, thinking, in any event, to use it as a plan for escape, but Robert never faltered for a moment. His own instincts were always for the right, and long comrades.h.i.+p with Willet and Tayoga made his will to obey those instincts all the stronger.

”Thank you, Captain,” he replied, ”but I judge that your cruises are all outside the law, and I cannot go with you on them, at least, not willingly.”

The slaver shrugged his shoulder.

”'Tis just as well that you declined,” he said. ”'Twas but a pa.s.sing whim of mine, and ten minutes later I'd have been sorry for it had you accepted.”

He shrugged his shoulders again, took a turn about the deck and then went down to his cabin. Robert, notified by a sailor, the first man on the schooner outside of the slaver to speak to him, ate supper with him there. The food was good, but the captain was now silent, speaking only a few times, and mostly in monosyllables. Near the end he said:

”You're to sleep in the room you've been occupying. The door will not be bolted on you, but I don't think you'll leave the s.h.i.+p. The nearest land is sixty or seventy miles away, and that's a long swim.”

”I won't chance it,” said Robert. ”Just now I prefer solid timber beneath my feet.”

”A wise decision, Peter.”

After supper the slaver went about his duties, whatever they were, and Robert, utterly free so far as the schooner was concerned, went on deck.

It was quite dark and the wind was blowing strong, but the s.h.i.+p was steady, and her swift keel cut the waters. All around him curved the darkness, and the loneliness of the sea was immense at that moment. It was in very truth a long swim to the land, and just then the thought of escape was far from him. He s.h.i.+vered, and going down to the little cabin that had been a prison, he soon fell asleep.

CHAPTER V

MUSIC IN THE MOONLIGHT

Several days pa.s.sed and from the standpoint of the schooner the voyage was successful. The wind continued fresh and strong, and it came out of the right quarter. The days were clear, the sea was a dazzling color, s.h.i.+fting as the sky over it s.h.i.+fted. The slaver was in high good humor.

His crew seemed to be under perfect control and went about their work mostly in silence. They rarely sang, as sailors sing, but Robert, watching them on spar or mast, although he knew little about s.h.i.+ps, knew that they were good sailors. He realized, too, that the crew was very large for a vessel of its size, and he believed that he understood the reason.

As for himself, he felt a vast loneliness. It was incredible, but he was there on the schooner far from all he had known. The forest, in which he had lived and the war that had concerned the whole world had sunk out of sight beyond the horizon. And on the schooner he had made no acquaintance save the slaver. He knew that the mate was called Carlos, but he had not yet spoken to him. He tried his best to be cheerful, but there were times when despair a.s.sailed him in spite of all his courage and natural buoyancy.

”Better reconsider,” said the slaver one day, catching the look upon his face. ”As I've told you, Peter, the life on the plantations is hard and they don't last long, no matter how strong they are. There's peril in the life I lead, I'll admit, but at least there's freedom also. Sport's to be found among the islands, and along the Spanish Main.”

”I couldn't think of it,” said Robert.

”Well, it's the second time I've made you the offer, and the last. I perceive you're bent on a life in the sugar cane, and you'll have your wish.”

Robert, seeing no chance of escape from the s.h.i.+p now, began to hope for rescue from without. It was a time of war and all vessels were more than commonly wary, but one might come at last, and, in some way he would give a signal for help. How he did not know, but the character of the schooner was more than doubtful, and he might be able, in some way, yet unsuggested, to say so to any new s.h.i.+p that came.

But the surface of the sea, so far as their own particular circle of it was concerned, was untroubled by any keel save their own. It was as lone and desolate as if they were the first vessel to come there. They fell into a calm and the schooner rocked in low swells but made no progress.

The sun shone down, bra.s.sy and hot, and Robert, standing upon the deck, looked at the sails flapping idly above. Although it carried him farther and farther away from all for which he cared, he wished that the wind would rise. Nothing was more tedious than to hang there upon the surface of the languid ocean. The slaver read his face.

”You want us to go on,” he said, ”and so do I. For once we are in agreement. I'd like to make a port that I know of much sooner than I shall. The war has brought privateersmen into these seas, and there are other craft that any s.h.i.+p can give a wide berth.”

”If the privateer should be British, or out of one of our American ports why should you fear her?” asked Robert.

”I'm answering no such questions except to say that in some parts of the world you're safer alone, and this is one of the parts.”

The dead calm lasted two days and two nights, and it was like forever to Robert. When the breeze came at last, and the sails began to fill, new life flowed into his own veins, and hope came back. Better any kind of action than none at all, and he drew long breaths of relief when the schooner once more left her trailing wake in the blue sea. The wind blew straight and strong for a day and night, then s.h.i.+fted and a long period of tacking followed. It was very wearisome, but Robert, clinging to his resolution, made the best of it. He even joined in some of the labor, helping to polish the metal work, especially the eighteen-pounder in the stern, a fine bronze gun. The men tolerated him, but when he tried to talk with them he found that most of them had little or no English, and he made scant progress with them in that particular. The big first mate, Carlos, rebuffed him repeatedly, but he persisted, and in time the rebuffs became less brusque. He also noticed a certain softening of the sailors toward him. His own charm of manner was so great that it was hard to resist it when it was continuously exerted, and sailors, like other men, appreciate help when it is given to them continuously. The number of frowns for him decreased visibly.

He still ate at the captain's table, why he knew not, but the man seemed to fancy his company; perhaps there was no other on the schooner who was on a similar intellectual level, and he made the most of the opportunity to talk.